that was what a lot of the 8th edition games I saw were also like. Mega unit vs mega unit slapping bellies in the center of the table until one failed a steadfast roll.

Jared Swenson

A common complaint I see about AoS that cracks me up is that often it ends up being a big grouping in the middle, and people seem to forget how it was for WHFB, where it was all just big blocks running into each other in the middle. At least in AoS you can retreat out of combat (which I do often enough that I couldn’t do in WHFB) and battleplans and scenarios make the game more interesting. But of course the haters will forget that.

Grumpy Scot

My WH 8th ed games were never like that. At all. Wood Elves FTW.

Slite

When I ran my Skaven armies, I tried to avoid that kind of fate. I’d use distraction units to draw enemies into my field of fire for my cannons. I’d flank enemies with my faster units to destroy the enemy artillery pieces.

Lots of tactical thinking was used in WHFB and to end up in a moshpit usually meant the death of my army. I had to think “Is my initiative high enough to charge into this combat and make a difference?”

In AoS, there is no initiative or weapon skill, or toughness, or strength to factor into a “Unit V. Unit” scenario.

standardleft

I don’t think the school league is designed for those sort of games.

WHAT THE HELLS GOING ON?!

yep, school league is for quick lunchtime gaming – 30 models limit, plus 15 cap on summoning, wound count with victory conditions affected by unequal forces. its for quick skirmishes.
aos strategic moving is up to the players- personally as a wood elf player im finding there’s many more options for strategic moving and creativity without the chains of whfb blocks (though you can of course still do blocks to no real detriment if you like the look). its on a per model basis, rather than a chunk of models moving more constrained way. have to think about tactics in a very different way to whfb. every model means something. As for grandeur, we are having huge games too- multiplayer, with massive hordes of stuff (often ranked!), across huge boards, all because gameplay is fast.